


From the Heart (Literally)

by remreader



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Extended Scene, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Iron Man 3, Light Angst, Missing Scene, The Shrapnel Necklace, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27697750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader
Summary: Tony gives Pepper the shrapnel necklace.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 46
Collections: Comfortember 2020, Pepperony Bingo 2020, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	From the Heart (Literally)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a fill for the Comfortember prompt "make/build/create something beautiful"
> 
> and some bingo squares...  
> Title: From the Heart (Literally)  
> Collaborator Name: newnewyorker93  
> TSB Card Number: 4042  
> Squares Filled:  
> • Tony Stark Bingo: K1 - strawberries  
> • Pepperony Bingo: G3 - "I love you. I'm lucky."  
> Main Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: Iron Man 3 extended/missing scene, fluff & humor, light angst  
> Summary: Tony gives Pepper the shrapnel necklace.  
> Word Count: 1494

Tony stood on the balcony and looked out at the twinkling lights of the city spread out below him. His fingers drummed nervously against the neatly wrapped box in his jacket pocket as he waited for Pepper to arrive. It had been months now since the quite literally explosive events of Christmas 2012 but with everything that had been going on since then - stabilizing Pepper's Extremis, rescuing and rebuilding the bots, relocating to New York, the minor detail of his own major heart surgery - all that before even factoring in the fact that as a CEO and a ~~technically still on medical leave~~ superhero neither of them exactly led uncomplicated lives on a _good_ day...suffice it to say that this was their first chance at a proper date night in a _long_ time, and Tony wanted it to be special. Which brought things back to that box in his pocket. Later there'd be dinner and champagne and maybe they'd even dance before the night was out, but first there was this.

Tony was soon distracted from his thoughts by the sound of a door gently swishing closed behind him and he turned to see Pepper stepping out onto the balcony, wearing a lovely silvery-grey silk dress. It wasn't one that Tony had ever seen before, which wasn't overly surprising as they'd both had to get mostly new wardrobes over the past few months. Good time to try something different. She looked beautiful, of course, and Tony had to bite back a satisfied grin thinking of how accidentally fitting this outfit was, how her dress and the bright, tantalizing red of her lipstick would go so perfectly with the gift he had sitting in his pocket. Leave it to Pepper to be perfectly prepared without even trying. But now he was getting ahead of himself.

"Interesting place for a date," Pepper observed, taking in the intimate little table and chairs setup Tony had put together on the otherwise empty balcony.

He shrugged. "It just felt right, you know?" They'd had their first kiss on a rooftop. A different rooftop, of course, but still. Tony liked the symbolism of it - new beginnings, just the two of them high above the city bustle.

Pepper smiled softly at that, her eyes sparkling in the starlight, and Tony wondered if she was thinking of the same memory. "Yeah."

"So!" Tony clapped his hands together eagerly. "Before we get to the _many_ delightful activities I have planned for this evening, I have something for you." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the box, which he presented to Pepper with a bit of a dramatic flourish. "I know Christmas was...well a complete disaster, really. So I thought, this time, I'd try going with something a bit more from the heart."

Pepper accepted the proffered present and began to painstakingly unwrap it, sliding a perfectly manicured fingernail under the tape to slice it open. Her methodical approach to gift unwrapping was one of Tony's favorite of her quirks; personally he would've just torn the whole thing open right away. When she'd finally made it through to the box layer of the packaging, excavating with all the precision of an archeologist uncovering a delicate find, she paused and looked back up at Tony, perplexed. "You got me a box of screws?"

"Of course I didn't." Tony scoffed. "Although, if you want me to screw you that can _definitely_ be arranged…" Not one of his more cleverly constructed puns, but the corner of Pepper's mouth quirked up in a slight indulgent grin anyway. "Nah, it's a decoy. Jewelry box would've given it away. Ruined the whole air of mystery I've been carefully cultivating here."

Pepper laughed. "So, you got me jewelry?"

"Shit. Well, actually, _actually_ \- no. If we're being precise, I _made_ you jewelry." Tony beamed and then, seeing the impressed look on Pepper's face at his words quickly shrugged, like it was no big deal. "Had to find _something_ to do with all that mandated free time I've had lately."

"That was _recovery_ time, Tony." Pepper corrected. "You had a major operation!"

"Potato, potahto. Plus I'm, you know, I'm trying to channel my creative energies in, um, healthier ways than I have, in the past…" Tony stumbled a bit over the words; therapy was helping but it would be a while yet before this kind of conversation came easily to him, even with Pepper. She reached out and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I rebuilt the garbage disposal too!" He quickly added, grasping randomly at an adjacent topic to try and cover for his nervousness. "His name is OSCAR, by the way, and he thinks you eat entirely too many vegetables, and-" Tony could hear himself starting to babble, he knew he was doing it but he couldn't stop and he was going to ruin everything he'd so carefully planned for tonight and-

Pepper put a finger over Tony's mouth, cutting him off mid-spiral. He gave her a grateful smile and kissed the portion of her finger that was within reach. "OSCAR?" she asked.

"Omnivorous Systematic Crusher of Agricultural Remnants," Tony explained. "He loves trash, so..."

Pepper laughed. "Of course. What _else_ would you name a sentient garbage disposal?" And then, after a fond shake of her head, she took the lid off the box of definitely-not-screws. Laying inside was a necklace, and Tony could tell from Pepper's slight gasp that she recognized the bits of metal strung along its chain, irregular shapes framing a ruby heart at its center.

The shrapnel had been one of the first things Tony had noticed after the surgery. Not the first thing - that had been the sensation of Pepper's hand gently gripping his, felt before he'd even woken up from the anesthesia enough to open his eyes, followed by a blurry glimpse of Rhodey, asleep in a chair across from his hospital bed - but one of the first. A nondescript plastic specimen jar full of tiny fragments of twisted metal (tiny was of course a relative term here, they were huge considering where they'd just been), sitting on a table next to his now obsolete arc reactor.

It had been an odd feeling, actually seeing them. He'd expected to get the arc reactor back, that was proprietary technology after all, but somehow he hadn't considered what would happen to the other inorganic detritus being extracted from his chest. He remembered Yinsen tossing him a dirty glass jar with similar contents back in the cave, back at the beginning of everything. The walking dead, he'd called Tony. Which had been true, then, in more ways than one. Not anymore.

Tony hadn’t known at first why he’d insisted on taking the container with him when he left the hospital. It was a bit of sentimental whimsy that wasn’t like him at all. Well, _he_ thought it wasn’t, at any rate. Blamed it all on the painkillers he was on and figured he'd throw them out later. But somehow he never quite ended up doing that. When the idea for the necklace finally struck him, well...it was weird, right? Was it weird? Giving your girlfriend a bunch of chunks of metal that had been stuck in your body for five years? Yeah, probably. Still, Tony had reasoned to himself, an argument _could_ be made that Pepper had started it, giving him back that first arc reactor. Really this would just be upping the ante a bit which, in all honesty, was very him. With that settled he'd started right away sketching out designs and having JARVIS queue up a litany of tutorial videos and now here they were.

"'From the heart'..." Pepper murmured, gently - almost reverently - tracing a finger along the jagged edge of one of the metal shards as she spoke. "Oh, _Tony_."

"Hoped you'd pick up on that," Tony grinned. Nothing like a borderline macabre joke to accompany a genuinely meaningful gift. Then doubt seized hold of him again. "Too much?"

Pepper looked up and met Tony’s worried gaze with her own now slightly watery eyes. Without a word she handed back the open box and turned around. Tony felt his heart plummet in a split second of irrational panic - he fucked up, she didn't want it, she didn't want _him_ \- and then she lifted her hair away from her neck and he realized with a burst of dizzying relief what she actually wanted.

Tony held Pepper closer than was strictly necessary for putting on a necklace but she didn't seem to mind, melting immediately into the loose embrace. He could feel her shiver slightly at the first brush of cold metal, then breathe in deeply as the full weight settled against her skin. He didn't realize he was holding his own breath until he let it out as she turned around in his arms and pulled him in closer, pressing her forehead to his and whispering softly, "It's perfect."

**Author's Note:**

> I got the impetus to revisit this draft and finally finish it after a discussion in the TSB server about, of all things, Tony's device acronyms, so I guess thank you to OSCAR the Garbage Disposal!
> 
> And thanks of course to you for reading it ❤


End file.
